Leonardo Wolfe v Taka Mayfair Limited

The statutory right to be accompanied at a disciplinary or grievance hearing depends on both the worker being required or invited to attend and making a reasonable request to be accompanied. Without a request, the employer’s specified duties do not arise, even if the worker did not realise the meeting’s nature or possible outcome until too late to request a companion. The statute does not imply a general duty to explain the meeting or notify the worker of the right to accompaniment. Clear statutory wording cannot be enlarged by reference to parliamentary purpose, the ACAS Code or an interpretation that goes beyond what section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 permits. The court left open whether a request made once the meeting’s nature becomes clear could be reasonable.

Leonardo Wolfe sought to amend his employment tribunal claim to add a complaint that Taka Mayfair Limited had breached his statutory right to be accompanied. He said that the restaurant’s owners dismissed him during an unannounced meeting without explaining its purpose or possible outcome. The Employment Tribunal refused the amendment, taking his account at its highest, because he accepted that he had made no request to be accompanied.

Wolfe appealed, arguing that an employer should not be able to avoid the statutory right by withholding information about a meeting. The issue before the Employment Appeal Tribunal was whether, on his pleaded case, the absence of a request meant that the statutory right and related employer duties did not arise.

1. Appeal dismissed. Section 10(1) of the Employment Relations Act 1999 sets out two cumulative conditions: the worker must be required or invited to attend a disciplinary or grievance hearing, and must reasonably request to be accompanied. If there is no request, the duties in the remainder of section 10 do not arise. On Wolfe’s own case, the proposed complaint was bound to fail ([21], [45]).
2. The word “reasonably” qualifies the worker’s request. It does not create a general duty for the employer to act reasonably or to provide information beyond the duties specified in section 10. The statute does not impose a duty to notify a worker of the right to request a companion. Nor could such a duty be inferred from the wider purpose of the legislation, even where the worker did not appreciate the meeting’s nature until too late ([23]–[24], [31]–[33]).
3. The court left open whether a worker who could not reasonably have understood the meeting’s nature sooner might make a reasonable request once that nature became clear, with an adjournment if needed. That question did not arise because Wolfe made no request at all ([25]–[26]).
4. The statutory wording was unambiguous. Parliamentary purpose could not be used to add a requirement absent from the text, and the conditions for resort to ministerial statements described in Pepper v Hart [1992] UKHL 2; [1993] AC 593 were not met ([27]–[30]).
5. The ACAS Code of Practice is not itself a statute. Under section 207(1) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, failure to observe it does not itself give rise to liability. Although section 207(2) requires a tribunal to take relevant Code provisions into account, they were not relevant to whether the statutory request condition had been met ([35]–[37]).
6. Neither the Convention arguments nor the proposed reading under section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 justified adding or qualifying the express request condition. R(G) v Governors of X School [2011] UKSC; [2011] ICR 1033 concerned a limited Article 6 context and a claim to legal representation. The observation in Talon Engineering v Smith [2018] IRLR 1104 about Article 11 did not support the construction Wolfe sought ([39]–[44]).

1. Employment Appeal Tribunal: Appeal dismissed. The tribunal had not erred in refusing the amendment because, on the claimant’s own case, no request to be accompanied was made and the statutory complaint was bound to fail. [2026] EAT 106 .
2. Employment Tribunal, London Central: Refused the application to amend the claim to add a complaint concerning the right to be accompanied.